This post covers the last few days of my trip from Sun Aug 8th to my return home on Wed Aug 11th

Sun Aug 8th:

Today was my last day with Roxana and Mauricio. I'm spending the rest of my time with a family who lives in the north of Mexico City. We started the day by having breakfast at a small restaurant/bakery called Matisse in La Condessa. La Condessa is an area of Mexico City where all of the artsy and fashion stuff takes place. Part of breakfast included fresh baked bread that had a shell of sugar around it. It was sooo yummy. We walked around the nearby Mexico Park which was full of people walking their pedigree dogs. Not kidding, I've never seen so many pedigree dogs in one spot other than a dog show. But the park was very green, and when I think Mexico City I don't think huge green parks

. It was a nice little oasis in the city, but then again, the city itself acutally has quite a few trees on the sidewalks. Atlanta has way less greenery than Mexico City.

After walking around for a bit we visited two bookshops, one was huge (bigger than Barnes and Noble) and the other was a small cute shop called the Pendulum that had a live band performing. I was in my element in these stores just browsing the shelves and writing down titles and authors that I might one day want to read. :)

Later on we met up with Arturo and family and I had to say goodbye to Roxana and Mauricio. I'm so glad that I got to meet them and spend a week with them in Mexico. I hope that one day I can visit them again.

Mon Aug 9th, Tues the 10th, and Wed the 11th:

The family I stayed with on the last few days was so sweet and welcoming. Arturo and Silvia are the parents and they have two daughters, Montzerrat (she's 20 and was my guide around the genetics workshop the previous week) and Marielle (who is 17). Their aunt lives nearby and has a precious almost 2 year old named Natalia. She was adorable and knew my name after just two days :).

On Monday Montze, Marielle, and I decided to be tourists and tour Mexico City on the double decker Turibus. We started off on the red line which goes around the north part of the city and includes Reforma Avenue and Zocalo (the downtown plaza where the cathedral and national palace are)

. At Zocalo we got off and switched lines to the Bicentennial Line which stopped by places of importance around the city to the independence and revolution. It was a fun day filled with picture taking.

Tuesday was a pretty relaxed day. We went to a couple of malls and just walked around. Later at night I had to make sure everything was packed and all set to go the next morning. I wish I could've stayed longer and spent more time with their family. They were so kind and generous to welcome me on such short notice, but I'm so glad that I got to meet them.

Montze and Marielle took me to the airport the next day. After passing through security I hung around for a couple of hours waiting to find out which gate my flight would be at. The flight back was smooth, but at the beginning I was worried it would be a long one. There was a four year old near me who was whining and crying before the flight took off, but fortunately she stopped soon after we were in the air, and I know I wasn't the only one who was glad about that. ;).

! I really want to see and experience more of their country. Perhaps one day I can go to the Yucatan where the Mayan Pyramids are or go to the canyons where the Tarahumara live (they are the ones who kicked off the whole barefoot running thing) or maybe got to Baja California! I definitely would love to go back and recommend traveling there if you haven't ever considered it.

paz y amor,

alice

ps: In less than a week I will be leaving for England and then Spain for my study abroad. I will be keeping a blog while I'm over there as well. Take a look and follow me/the blog and don't forget to comment! Thanks for reading this blog... hope it gave you a new look at Mexico and maybe given you the travel bug :)

Comments

Sounds like fun! I wouldn't imagine Mexico City to be very green either. I guess that is what we get for making assumptions about places we have never been. You know what that means? We need to go more places. :) I am down for Baha or the Yucatan.